There's definitely a learning curve to LaTeX, but not a huge one, as it's mostly just a markup language. If you want to get in to the programming side of it, or if you want to learn one of the larger LaTeX packages really well, that would take you more time, but not even then it shouldn't scare anyone, particularly if you've learned other high level programming languages before. Diving in to TeX itself could be a different story, but I can't comment since I've never bothered to learn it myself, and haven't had to for anything that I've done with LaTeX.
Where LaTeX shines is for cases where you don’t really care about the details of the layout, but just want someone else to handle it all in a somewhat sensible way when you hand them a basic manuscript, and not shit all over itself the way MS Word does on a regular basis.
LaTeX is great for generic college papers where you don’t have figures and don’t have time to worry about the layout. By contrast it’s a huge pain in the butt for something like magazines, coffee-table books, or posters.
(It’s also the best way to typeset mathematical formulas, of course.)
- nice block text adjustment, line-breaks and hyphenation, line/paragraph,chapter spacing
- margins and padding, page numbers, and chapter headings
- font selection, supporting ligatures and kerning if you are fancy
I'm sure the devil is in the details, but how much detail can there be in basic running text? I'm fine reading novels rendered by basic html engines without css, even in monospaced font. The most important consideration for a text layout engine seems to be the font data format and corresponding font engine, which I don't know much about, because I don't really care.
You'd think that typesetting a novel would be a gimme, but in the current ecosystem (tex or otherwise) it's a shambles.
I use it mainly for technical documentation (product manuals, etc.), so I've never tried the memoir class. But what I find myself doing mostly these days is makinng my own classes, usually based on article because it seems to me to have the most 'neutral' defaults.
It's a very steep learning curve, but I've found it an extremely valuable technology to be able to use.
Asking questions on the TeX stack overflow is a pretty good way to get help also.
I'm now reading on ConTeXt and it seems to be a much more adequate TeX format. For one thing, it supports grid typesetting! LaTeX's philosophy is to separate style and content, leaving the style to "someone else". It seems that ConTeXt's philosophy is to separate style and content, but still make it easy for the user to choose the style. It's also more integrated: comprehensive core, few third-party packages, meaning less compatibility issues (but less choice too). I'll definitely try it for my next project.
what does this mean? I haven't seen that term before. I assume it's nothing to do with tables..
Generally you also want the baseline of titles to fall on the grid. Possibly also the formulas, figures etc.
LaTeX is pretty bad at this: by default it inserts stretchable vertical space between paragraphs, and around things like bullet lists, centered text and formulas.
Stretchable space is a good thing when you have a lot of elements beside simple paragraphs: it gives TeX flexibility to produce a nice page layout. For example the optimal spacing around equations might not be a multiple of the inter-line space. And you might still want to have the last line land precisely at the bottom of the page, so there must be a stretchable space somewhere. This flexibility also helps avoiding widows and orphans[1].
On the other hand I think non-grid-aligned text looks terrible for novels, especially when the page is thin and you can see through the paper the text on the other side (it's much less noticeable if the lines on both sides are perfectly aligned). Grid typesetting is also nice when you have multiple columns of text on the same page: it looks odd if the lines of one column are not aligned with those in the next column.
Of course, it's all about using a good template. Usually I find there are tons of resources out there, but it does often involve finding someone with the same problem and asking the right question.